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Recent geographical work in Whiteness studies has been primarily Anglophone and centered on the USA, Britain and Australia. This paper expands those studies to consider the case of Denmark. Using three themes of Whiteness, the paper analyzes the 2002 'Twenty-four year marriage law,' which regulates marriage by Danish citizens and legal Danish residents to individuals from outside Denmark, the Nordic countries and the European Union. This law stipulates that for spouses or cohabitants from outside these three regions to be granted residence permits in Denmark, certain conditions must be met including the requirement that both partners must be over the age of 24. The paper argues that the implementation of the twenty-four year law is overt evidence that Whiteness is well-entrenched in Denmark, contradicts the very values Danish society states it wishes to uphold and is negatively impacting a portion of the very population that Whiteness is trying to protect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Forty years ago Denmark had very few residents of non-Nordic extraction, but since then a flood of immigrants, refugees and their family members have changed the social dynamic between "native" Danes and "outsiders." Seeking ways to cope with this challenge, Denmark has in the last ten years focused on how best to "integrate" its immigrants. A perusal of Danish research literature reveals that "integration" is an elusive and multi-faceted term; yet it is used in a specific manner by the Danish government. Its stance is that employment equals integration. Once an immigrant or refugee obtains a job, then that individual is "integrated." Semi-structured, in-depth interviews were held in Copenhagen with government officials and in the County of North Jutland with refugees, Danish language instructors, job counselors and volunteer workers to determine the extent to which the Danish government was succeeding with its policies. The focus on economic integration left many social issues unaddressed and even the limited government goal of "economic integration" is not being achieved. Given numerous barriers to the employment of immigrants, the interviewed refugees faced the choice of either remaining in their assigned municipalities and continuing to receive social welfare benefits or moving away from the municipalities in search of employment. Either choice meant a lack of economic assimilation in their assigned placement, essentially discrediting Danish policy. The paper concludes with possible alternative approaches to the integration of refugees and immigrants into Danish society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]